Today's Family & Kids Activities in Queens-Feb 18

February 18, 2013
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Daily activities for kids and the family are abound in Queens! Whether you want to spend the day with your children at a zoo, a museum, or just outdoors, we've got it all here. Making plans for next weekend for your family? Take a glance at the NY Metro Parents' calendar!

Red, indigo, violet, tangerine, periwinkle. How many different colors can you imagine? Take a journey where art and poetry come together in a beautiful colorful adventure. Play with the sound, feel, and story of color. Be inspired by art, poetry, and music as you brainstorm what mood you think Willem de Kooning was in when he created some of his abstract paintings. Create a colorful abstract painting using different mediums and shapes that express your feelings for the day.

The exhibition Spacewar! Video Games Blast Off looks at the first fifty years of video games. All games, from Tag and Tic Tac Toe to Pac Man and Super Mario Galaxy are actually systems that share common features. In this 45-minute workshop, children learn what makes a game a game—and what makes a game fun—by making one, using tokens, die, game chips, and other materials. Materials fee $5, plus admission.

With the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen. In the first of the Madagascar films released in 3-D, the animals still desire to get back to the Big Apple. A detour leads them through Europe, where a traveling circus provides the perfect hideout.

Take refuge from winter by retreating to Tropical Paradise - a showcase of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory's permanent collection, including orange-yellow crotons, fuchsia bromeliads, and rosy-red hibiscus. You'll feel like you are on vacation without leaving New York.
View The Beauty of Paradise: A Photographic Tour during regular Garden hours. See a photographic display of tropical paradises around the world. Learn about plants and flowers found in tropical climes through a display of exceptional photographs from the prestigious International Garden Photographer of the Year Contest, of which the Botanical Garden is the US partner. Access additional details about the displayed photographs via your smartphone.
Inside the cozy Discovery Center in the Everett Children's Adventure Garden, kids of all ages can take a closer look at the differences between tropical and temperate plants in Tropical Discoveries and Wintertime Wonders. Pot up a specimen plant to take home and compare its characteristics with foliage in your neighborhood; make bark rubbings, count tree rings, and head back into the winter garden with a field notebook to discover the vital sparks of life that lie just below the surface of this quiet season. On view January 19-February 24.
Please confirm hours on the day of your visit by calling 718-817-8700.

Kids can spend the winter with an original super hero, Dec.1 through Feb. 28. Enjoy screenings of episodes of classic movie serials in Tut's Fever Movie Palace, an artwork by Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong that pays homage to the movie palace. This sequel to the original Dick Tracy serial finds Dick battling spies and saboteurs in his quest to bring the notorious Stark crime gang to justice.

"Rise of the Guardians," the new animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, is a visually enthralling film based on William Joyce's "The Guardians of Childhood" book series, with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and other beloved characters reinterpreted as action heroes in a parable about the ongoing struggle between good and evil.
This gallery exhibition takes a look behind the scenes, revealing the innovative collaborative process behind the making of the film. Original artwork, both digital and hand-drawn, an exclusive time-lapse video presentation of in-process footage progressing to the finished film, and a revealing documentary that takes us into the DreamWorks Animation studio, show how the colorful world of the movie and its memorable characters were created.
An accompanying film series, with screenings every Saturday and Sunday at 1:00 p.m. and special holiday screenings, offers visitors the opportunity to experience the finest films from DreamWorks Animation, including the Shrek and Madagascar series, "Antz," "How to Train Your Dragon," and much more, in a theatrical setting. Note: The documentary "Creating an Epic" (directed by Patrick Hanenberger; 70 minutes) will screen continuously in the Bartos Screening Room from 2pm-close on weekdays and 12-6pm on weekends.
The exhibit is organized by guest curator Jenny He and chief curator David Schwartz, presented with support from DreamWorks Animation.

Families can bring their food scraps (fruit and vegetable scraps; coffee grounds, including paper filter; tea bags; egg and nut shells; bread and pasta with no toppings) to the weekly food waste drop-off outside Queens Library at Sunnyside, Saturdays through March 23. The Western Queens Compost Initiative will turn them into nutrient-rich compost. No meat, dairy, bones, or oily foods, please.

Larry Lederman, landscape photographer and member of NYBG's Board of Advisors, has spent years walking the garden grounds to observe and photograph trees and vistas in all seasons and at all times of day. Lush images featuring their diversity and visual impact are on view in the gallery space.
The New York Botanical Garden is home to more than 30,000 trees, some in woodland, some in groves, and some standing in solitary majesty. Magnificent Trees is lavishly illustrated with photographs by Larry Lederman and accompanied by descriptions by Todd A. Forrest, Arthur Ross vice president for horticulture and living collections at the garden. An authority on the diverse species present across the 250-acre landscape, Forrest details their fascinating histories -- from their vital role in Native American life and culture to their function in neutral territory during the Revolutionary War. Lederman captures their grandeur in hundreds of stunning images and portrays their diversity with photographs that reveal the trees in myriad fascinating perspectives: in landscape views that convey the garden's genius loci; portraits illustrating the architecture and profound visual impact of select trees; remarkable details of flowers, fruit, leaves, and bark; and impressionistic images, abstract in character yet beautiful in composition.

Find out how the physics of gravity, force, velocity and balance make radical tricks possible in action sports in this program that runs through April 22. Children under age 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

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NYMetroParents is the parenting division of Davler Media Group and encompasses 9 regional print magazines within the greater NY metro region as well as the website (nymetroparents.com). Following the success of the first NYC parenting resource book, "Big Apple Baby," BIG APPLE PARENT was launched in 1985; it is now the largest publisher of regional parenting content in the United States.